Postgraduate Publishing studies at Edinburgh Napier University. INDUSTRY APPROVED Publishing degrees (accredited by the Professional Publishers Association and Creative Skillset). MSc Publishing was the first Publishing programme in the UK to be accredited by the Professional Publishers Association (PPA). It is now accredited by Creative Skillset (only one of two courses to hold this award). MSc Magazine Publishing is the only course of its kind in Scotland and is the only publishing course in the UK to be accredited by the PPA. The PPA is the lead body for best practice in training, development and people management for the magazine and business media industry.

Placement at Luath Press

Luath Press

Upon arriving at my first day at Luath Press, situated at the top of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, I was presented with a large checklist of activities to be completed during my two-week placement, and from that point I was pretty much left to get on with it! Although initially daunting, this turned into a hugely rewarding opportunity to try my hand at all the things I have learned over the course of my MSc Publishing studies, working largely on my own initiative, though thankfully there were helpful colleagues and even a Luath wiki-guide on hand to help me out if I ever got too stuck.

And so, from that point onwards I found myself much busier than I initially anticipated I might be, compiling blurbs, press releases, and AI sheets. I also got to opportunity to brush up on my proof reading and copy editing skills. One of the books I worked on was the upcoming release of Blood City by Douglas Skelton, a book about Glasgow’s seedy crime underworld set during 1980. After enjoying reading this so much, I was thrilled to get the opportunity to conduct an interview with the author later that week! Although initially pretty nerve-wracking, I didn’t crash and burn as I feared I might do, actually managing to turn out a pretty thorough and engaging interview, and finding myself surprised to be genuinely enthralled and interested by the answers I got! Something which surprised me a bit as a newbie to this kind of thing.

This was just one of the great opportunities I got throughout my placement. Another was sorting through new author submissions, and giving my judgements of what I thought of them, something which I was not sure I felt qualified to do initially, but which turned out to be hugely fun (the power might have went to my head a little bit)! Also, I got to upload new content to the Luath website, and even research and call up potential venues for an upcoming book launch. All in all the placement was fantastic. Certainly not an easy few weeks, but I came out of my placement feeling a lot more confident about moving forward in this industry, and I don’t really think I could have asked for a better placement!